Criticism focuses on the change to the appearance of the actor who directs, co-writes and stars in Maestro, biopic of the conductor and composer

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Bradley Cooper is facing criticism for performing in “Jewface” after the release of the trailer for his biopic of Leonard Bernstein, which revealed the facial prosthetics he employed for the role.

Bernstein, the son of Jewish-Ukrainian immigrants to the US, was a hugely talented conductor and composer, best known for writing the music for West Side Story as well as composing three symphonies and becoming music director of the New York Philharmonic. Cooper, who directs, co-writes and stars in Maestro, is not Jewish, and can be seen in the trailer with a noticeably prominent fake nose opposite Carey Mulligan, who plays Bernstein’s wife Felicia Montealegre.

British actor and activist Tracy-Ann Obermann criticised Cooper on social media, writing: “If [Cooper] needs to wear a prosthetic nose then that is, to me and many others, the equivalent of Black-Face or Yellow-Face … if Bradley Cooper can’t [play the role] through the power or acting alone then don’t cast him – get a Jewish Actor.”

Obermann added, referencing Cooper’s performance on stage in 2014 as John Merrick in The Elephant Man: “Bradley Cooper managed to play the ELEPHANT MAN without a single prosthetic then he should be able to manage to play a Jewish man without one.”

The Hollywood Reporter’s chief TV critic Daniel Fienberg called the prosthetics “problematic” when photos from the set emerged in May, and subsequently described the film as “ethnic cosplay”.

In a statement posted on social media, Bernstein’s children Jamie, Alexander, and Nina defended Cooper, saying: “It breaks our hearts to see any misrepresentations or misunderstandings of [Cooper’s] efforts … Bradley chose to use makeup to amplify his resemblance, and we’re perfectly fine with that. We’re also certain that our dad would have been fine with it as well.”

The controversy follows objections to the casting of Cillian Murphy as nuclear physicist J Robert Oppenheimer – again, a non-Jewish actor playing a notable Jewish figure – in the biopic directed by Christopher Nolan, with David Baddiel describing such casting as “complacent” and “doubl[ing] down” on “Jewish erasure”. Baddiel also criticised the casting of Helen Mirren as Israeli prime minister Golda Meir, writing in the Guardian that “over a period of extreme intensification of the progressive conversation about representation and inclusion and microaggression and what is and isn’t offensive to minorities, one minority – Jews – has been routinely neglected”.